Dispute unresolved; *****s money

As a previous Topmed member, I had the option of choosing a plan with Fedhealth when an amalgamation occurred at the end of June 2019. I was automatically put on a plan that was not quite the same as my Topmed plan but was luckily given until 30 September to move to a new plan. On 30 September I had finally decided to pay a bit more for a non- network plan and phoned them. I spoke to an agent requesting the change and asked when this change would be in effect as well as making sure no other fees were needed and all was good. He answered that the change would be from 1 October.

The next day I got an email about the change as well as an email stating that I owed them a further R950 as a back payment for the 3 months before I had changed over to the more expensive plan (so that I would basically have to pay for a service I did not use). I phoned and explained that the agent had said the wrong starting date to me and I felt it unfair to have to pay for his mistake - my starting date on this higher plan was not 1 July but 1 October. After a whole month of phoning and having the issue "escalated to supervisor level" without anyone getting back to be or giving me an answer about whether they had found the recording of the change phone call; Fedhealth put a debit order in to withdraw the amount out of my account 3 days after I told them not to until the dispute could be finalised. I reversed the debit order and a month later another one went through.

It has now been more than 2 months and their credit controller 'Willem Du Preez' never answers his phone; my money is still in their possession and no one has been able to resolve this dispute. Fedhealth is in the wrong, but happy to take as much money as they can. Needless to say they lost more than one client after this happened.